


Pater Damnat

by anamatics



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Consequences, Gen, M/M, Magic, Slow Burn, conversion therapy, or some botched version of it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 06:58:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16676800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamatics/pseuds/anamatics
Summary: Dorian’s father’s curse succeeds, after a fashion, and Dorian is on a journey to pick up the pieces. And maybe heal a little in the process.





	Pater Damnat

**Author's Note:**

> I am playing very fast and loose with canon.

‘You can tell when he’s in a dangerous mood because he becomes so respectable. When something has happened to humiliate him and make him see, even for a moment, how disgusting he is, and how alone, then he remembers that he is a member of one of the best and oldest families in Thedas. But maybe, then, he remembers that his name is going to die with him. Then he has to do something, quick, to make that feeling go away.’  
(with liberties, from Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin)

-

Petty little acts of rebellion followed him everywhere. He relished in them, turned them over in his hands and threw them back in the faces of those who wished to judge him with the flippancy of a spoilt child and the assuredness of those most adept at the game. His was a mask well-worn at fine parties and in the darkest slums of his homeland. It was a twist of his wrist to caress the exposed skin at the exposed gap between glove and shirtsleeve when grasping another man’s forearm in greeting, a mockery of a bow when he should show nothing but respect, his utter incapability to fade into the background when it was best to just be silent; he pushed against what was expected, against what was demanded, at every turn.

This push to rebel _should_ have been what had him running to the south, fleeing from the oppressive thumb and the sheer weight of expectation. To venture into this land of uncivilized barbarians who feared magic like he feared silence was suicide, every good Tevinter knew this. He was a disappointment, though, and disappointments never failed to disappoint again. As he climbed the mountain of his third decade, the truth was slowly dawning on him. He as the last of his line. With him, his forefathers’ legacy would die.

The country he loved, the place he wanted to see redeemed to the point where its potential could be realized, had thrown him out. Tossed him aside because he refused to live the lie that so many who came before him and would come after him abided by so easily. He could not live that lie. Too proud, the demons in his dreams whispered, too proud to adhere to such convention. Too wrapped up in his rejection of his family’s ambition to be bothered with the idea of simply hiding a part of himself away behind closed doors for everyone’s sake. Too caught up in his own head to realize that the only chance he had ever had to be his own person was slowly being stripped away.

Except now, that slowness was escalating, and moving far, far quicker than Dorian had ever even imagined was possible.

His arms ached. Thin cuts, like spiders webs, spanned down his arms to curl at his wrists. They leaked blood slowly, oozing into the tangled mess of runes carved in a shaky hand into the skin of his chest. Magic leaked out of him, the colours blending together into a brown, sickly mess on the floor of his father’s wine cellar. His father looked down at him, his lips curling and his eyes flashing with black hatred. His wrists twisted and the blood he’d scarified to make his last desperate attempt at control over his son ran crimson down the pristine white of his shirtsleeves. “Yield,” his father hissed in high Tevene. “Yield to the will of the father.”

The mana twisted in Dorian’s gut, and he could feel it, feel the pull of the potions they’d forced down his throat mingling with the mana and attempting to purge something from him – something knotted at the centre of his chest near to his heart.  His hands were free – the slave’s binding spell had worn off. Dorian could hardly bring his fingers, covered in blood and puss though they were, to his lips to cram them down his throat and hold them there until the surge of nausea finally came. 

His father’s blood fell like rain upon his head and Dorian vomited black bile into the mess upon which he laid. It glowed pale blue when it hit the ground, pulsing slightly as it mixed with the swill. The thought came, fleeting, that it wasn’t right for it to be blue like lyrium. He felt no sense of the substance in his system, and yet here was his sick, full of the stuff.

He wavered, his conscious fleeting. He had to fight – had to push on.

Dorian blinked the haze of tears from his eyes. Across the room before him, the body of the slave who’d started this whole mess was cast aside on the floor, blood pooling from the wound in his neck.  The boy’s spirt was still there, clinging to its dead body like the remnants of the binding spell made Dorian’s movements sluggish.  He pressed his hand into the glowing blue mess of vomit – the lyrium soaking into his skin – and drew the boy’s spirt forward. His father was chanting some nonsense, and his eyes were closed as his life’s blood leaked from his wrists.  It was the time, the only time, in which he could act.

It hurt – sweet Andraste it hurt. His very essence was being pried from his body though the force of the potion and the blood he wasn’t quite able to free himself from.  He panted, throwing up a weak barrier and then, after the brief reprieve of it, he forced himself to cast a stronger one. Once the oppressive weight of his father’s spell had dissipated, Dorian reached into his mana reserves and _pushed -_ shoving the boy’s spirit back into his body.  It was a Nevvaran in origin, learned from a Mortalitasi Dorian had no business interacting with back in the back room of a Minrathous whorehouse when he was but fifteen. His father wouldn’t know what he was doing – if his father was still reachable at all under the haze of the blood magic. He concentrated and forced the fade to bend to his will, asking, begging, pleading with the slave’s spirt to take the knife and fight back against his murderer.

It was only when the slave rose and pulled the knife from its neck to plunge it into his father’s leg that Dorian was able to summon the strength to stand.  He was shaky on his feet, but he could not stay. The binding spell on the slave’s soul would only last a minute and he had no time.

There was never anything to say to his father, nothing more to do than to force the rest the vile potion from his gut all over his father’s drakeskin boots and pull the amulet from the man’s chest. The mark of a Magister would grant him passage out of the Imperium quickly and without question.

“You are not my father.” Dorian spat the last of the potion onto the ground took the knife from his father’s leg, twisting it as he removed it. “And I am no son of this house.”

Pride, pride, pride and lust where his downfalls. But now it was pride that had him staggering into his rooms, weak and delirious, throwing clothing, books and coin together as quickly as he could. The pack he had was small, a remainder of his circle days, but it would make due for now. Perhaps when he was further south… There was no time for thought now. He had to ensure he had money, had to ensure he could get out of the Imperium. His father would recover soon enough and Dorian had to be long gone by then. Wash kit – clean clothes – spellbooks – staff – he moved quickly, methodically, repacking what little he had to his name after months of being locked in his rooms.

He took his father’s favourite horse from the slave who held it ready at the gate without a word. Mounting was terrible, his balance even more uncertain as he realized just how much blood was still seeping from the runes cut into his chest and the web of cuts knotted around his arms and spine. There would be time for that later. He wrapped the reins around his wrist and hung on to the horse’s mane, half tipping forward as he urged the horse down the streets of his hometown and into the pale spring evening.

Dorian didn’t stop, hadn’t dared stop until he nearly in Carastes. Three miles off the road there was village with a single tavern. It was nestled at the start of the highlands that would eventually lead to the mountains that formed the Hundred Pillars. It was little more than a hovel, and as Dorian stood in the stable using the bladed end of his staff to poke holes in the ice-covered water basin so his horse could drink, he knew he was safe enough to breathe once more. He rubbed the horse down, brushed her carefully, not wanting to waste coin on the groom’s services. When finished he stumbled behind the stable and let the contents of his stomach spill once more – more black and glowing blue lyrium. More corruption, the final bits of the potion needing to be expelled from his gut. Maker take his father and his blood magic with him.

And so it went as Dorian travelled south. He avoided the imperial roads, cutting through the highlands to Marothius and their library at the base of the mountains. There he stayed, living on a friend’s charity. He didn’t so much as glance at another man while he was within the city walls, there was no time, and he didn’t want to be _found_ until he had a plan to get away. He would not be subjected to the blood magic again. Dorian knew, he knew deep down inside of himself that there was no cure for what ailed him. His father’s attempt could have stripped him of both mind and magic – broken his dreams – his ambitions. A slave of good genetics bent to _pater damnat_. It was so laughable in hindsight that Dorian could almost forget that it was still making him sick. The tangled knot of the potion still making him retch most mornings – still had his gut roiling when he got too close to people. His magic was off-kilter, his connection to the fade in disarray.

He had to know what this was. The curiosity ate at him, and blood magic wounds were slow to heal. Dorian spent his time reading, because the books here were older, rarer, and more steeped in the lore of the old gods. The search was fruitless, for Dorian had nothing but his hazy memories to look to for guidance. Yet he was happier than he’d been in a long time. He was, he supposed, his own man for the first time in his life. His work with Alexius, the study of time and the search for something to fix Felix – the preparation for his Enchanter’s harrowing – it had never felt like his own. Not like this, not like digging through old books and the old mysteries of how this particular blood magic worked. This was for his own interest, his own edification.

_(His own salvation.)_

“Enchanter Pavus,” the head librarian – Yasmina – called to him one morning as he slipped back inside after getting some air. “Could I trouble you for a word?”

Dorian, perhaps grown unaccustomed to his name after renouncing his father, nodded and allowed the old elven woman, wrought iron around her neck still despite her advanced age, to lead him back into her office. She was a slave of the city’s government, nothing more than a tool to them, but a wise and well-liked woman regardless of her status. It was not the first time that Dorian felt a knot in his stomach, thinking about those less fortunate than he was, with scarcely a handful of coins to his name and living off charity.

“It is unusual for an enchanter of your calibre to come through Marothius and linger, especially an altus,” Yasmina began. She perched on the front of her desk and folded her arms primly in her lap. “You would prove a valuable asset to the circle here, should you be so inclined as to offer your services.” The circle at Marothius was small, more of a clearing house for the other, better equipped circles to the west. The children who came here showing talent were mostly soporati children. Irregular births of those inclined to be dreamers because of the weakness of the veil near the mountains. “We could not pay you much, but you would be comfortable and not sleeping on Enchanter Grandi’s sofa.” Her lips pressed into a thin line, “Or at the reading room table.”

It is a kind offer, one that Dorian knew he should not accept. Establishing ties only meant that his father would be able to find him – find him and complete the ritual. Yet the words of acquiescence were out of his mouth before he can think to seriously about their implication. Perhaps, with these children, he can be better than his own tutors. “What would you have me teach them?”

“Control,” the elven woman answered.  “And theory. The children are struggling with both and our teachers have had little luck.”

“Well then,” Dorian said with a flourish of a bow that would not have been out of place in at a Minrathous circle ball. “Thank goodness you thought to ask me.” It was as though she knows him too well, for the smile blossoming over Dorian’s face is well-met with a glimmer in her eyes smirk at her lips.

He spent a year in Marothius. His magic unbalanced and not quite working correctly. He devoted countless hours to its stabilization with little results. He could cast, he could draw deeply from his mana, and the spells would work with the same bombastic power to which Dorian was accustomed. By all accounts things were normal.  And yet there was a creeping sense of wrongness that he couldn’t shake. He was ill most mornings, and the strange blue in his sick had not dissipated.

It wasn’t, he had ascertained, lyrium at all. But rather emblematic of the corruption within him now. The blood magic curse hadn’t quite worked, for all Dorian could tell. He wasn’t tranquil and his magic was still what he was used to – just tainted – it made him sick. Made him feel like something was trying to tear his still beating heart though his chest. 

It sickened him.

But he could do nothing but carry on.

His father found him as the year drew to a close. He had time to pack this time, as the life he built in this mountain city unravelled before his eyes. Rumours were circulating of his predilections, the blighted desires he had kept at bay for nearly a year as he forced himself to remain hidden in the dark shadows of the mountains towering over this town. He hadn’t… acted on them, hadn’t seen the necessity and hadn’t wanted his father to find him until he knew what was wrong with his mana.

It wasn’t like Dorian to hide. But the creeping shame of the _wrong wrong wrong_ within him, lingering like a humid morning, was one he couldn’t shake. It was caught up in the lingering looks, in the uncomfortable silences that drew out when Grandi invited him to dinner or Dorian found himself in the company of Yasmina’s betters. It burned hot and angry in his chest, a heat he could not push away. The shame, like the magic itself, amplified by his refusal to speak of it to anyone.

Grandi asked, Dorian had no words for him. It was easier to take advantage, after all, for as long as the man’s favour would last.

In the end, no one asked him to resign, no one thought to bother. Yet the expectation was that he would leave. The biting humiliation of it all, the clear rejection of his person by the establishment he thought was his saving grace, burned deeply in Dorian’s mind. Dorian could not show weakness. He would not.  _Ah, pride._ He kept his face still as he moved through his room, wrapping books in watertight canvas and bundling straw around his medicine kit.

Grandi stood in his doorway and watched, his arms crossed. “You don’t have to let this bother you, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Ah, but that is where you are wrong, my dear man.” Grandi had only ever been a friend – never more – his willowy frame and soft nature were not Dorian’s type. Dorian bent to buckle the saddlebag on the bed before moving to gather his small clothes and the few pairs of warm socks Yasmina had knit for him during their time working together. “Should I stay they will know and they will come. Not just for me, but for Yasmina and for you. They’ll see you both as enabling my corruption of the youth with my… _predilections_ , no doubt. You’re a free man, but Yasmina… well, I doubt she would survive such a humiliation.”

Grandi said nothing for a long time. “You would run to save a slave.” He stated it like it was some sort of improbable thing, not what any good person should do. Like Dorian wasn’t fleeing out of cowardice; confusion over what had happened to him and fear of what might continue if his father found him and finished what he’d started. “To save my reputation and her life you would destroy all you’ve built here.”

Dorian did not respond, but he did clasp Grandi’s forearm tightly in farewell. “You are a good man,” he said. The saddlebags over his shoulder were heavy, and his pack heavier still. Dorian reached for his staff by the door and leaned on it. “Kiss the children for me. Tell them… tell them something to make them understand.”

“Maker watch over you, Dorian.” His friend answered.

At the stables, the children were gathered, their staves held loosely in their hands. Yasmina held them back as Dorian saddled his horse and clipped the saddlebags into place. He could not look at them, for if he did, he was certain he would cry.

-

His travel became more erratic after that, drifting all over the southern Imperium. At Vyranthium, he heard tell of chaos erupting in the Free Marches, about a knight-commander mad on lyrium and a great seat of the southern chantry destroyed an apostate mage-turned-abomination. War was brewing on multiple fronts, the soldiers from the Nevvaran border said, in passing on the road. War between the Southern Chantry’s Templars and the mages they kept locked away. War in Orlais. Tension was rising everywhere. It tasted like ash on Dorian’s tongue.

He travelled west, wanting to avoid such chaos, but it was at Vol Dorma that he found himself turned around and heading south along the Imperial Highway once more. A runner found him there, bearing a letter from a man Dorian had never expected to hear from again, not after how things had ended the last time.

The appointed meeting place was in Cumberland, through Navarra and across the Silent Planes upon the Waking Sea. Why the man was so far south Dorian would never know, and crossing the border was not easy. With the Free Marches descending into chaos following the Kirkwall Uprising, the Imperium’s soldiers were massing in the border towns. While he, a magister’s son, had nothing to fear from them, Dorian did not wish to be seen.  He crossed the plains at night, away from prying eyes – and kept his hood up save to pass through the border into Nevarra, the letter weighing heavily on his mind.

Alexius was on the move, and he wanted Dorian. He said it was urgent, that the past was forgotten and that Dorian could rest easy knowing that Alexius bore him no ill will. Things were happening, the letter promised, things that brought great omens and good tidings. Dorian went to Cumberland because he didn’t have any other choice – not really. He had to know, and the only way to be certain was to chase the man halfway across the continent toward the unravelling south.

In Cumberland, Dorian’s worst fears for his former mentor were realised. Alexius was acting on behalf of the Venatori – his plans were not on behalf of the Magisterium, but rather the fanatical ravings of vile Tevinter supremacy the likes of which Dorian tried, on his best days, to avoid, and on his worst, openly and publicly demonstrated his displeasure at their existence. He had, on one rather unfortunate occasion, killed a man at a circle ball for professing such sympathies. It had won him no favours, for duelling was considered a sport for the lower classes. Had Dorian merely poisoned the man, it would have been another story, or so his father had said. His hatred of the Venatori was as strong as Dorian’s own – only Dorian’s father was far more sly about such things and rarely, if at all in polite company, let on that he thought they were the scum he had his slaves scrape from his boot. To see Alexius, a man to whom Dorian had looked up to almost like he had once looked upon his own father confess such sympathies stung like a wound left to fester.

“You know what I say is true, Dorian. Look around you, look at how pathetic these people are.” The betrayal stung sharp and hot in Dorian’s throat as he stared at the man in the smoke filled parlour of some rich supremacist’s home. The acrid taste was the same as his father’s blood magic – equally awful and miserable. His mentor, his master, all this time – had never once said he felt this way –had never once said anything at all.

“We are no better than anyone else, Alexius.” Dorian spat out in return. He felt unbalanced, his mind reeling and his connection to the fade already flickering. The fear that blossomed within Dorian was what he was afraid of after his time in the mountains; his magic forgotten. He pushed it aside and concentrated, letting the mana flow through him, willing the fade to sing to him once more.  “We still shit and eat and bleed and die. Our magic does not make us better.”

“That is where you are wrong, boy.” The magic that slammed into him was strong and riddled with his master’s embrace of the fire arts. Yet it was weaker than Dorian expected given the circumstances. This was Nevarra after all, magical violence was not as common here as it was in Tevinter. Alexius had to be careful so as to not attract Chantry attention here – for this was still the south, and the Templars here followed the White Divine. Magic was to be controlled here, and duelling – well, that was surely a sign of being out of control.

“We are the only answer, and as the south descends into chaos so shall Tevinter rise,” It seemed time had not stopped Alexius’s terrible tendency to drone on _so._ The spell that followed settled onto Dorian so quickly he could scarcely believe how quickly Alexius drew the power together. He hadn’t even noticed the…

_Andraste’s tits. How hadn’t he noticed?_

Dorian caught the energy of the fade and twisted it, careful not to let it show on his face. He pushed the spirit energy outwards, unleashing the mindblast and forcing off the shackles of the binding spell Alexius had thrown at him. No man would ever bind him again. Gathering more power to him, lightning crackling at his fingertips, Dorian stepped into the fade and unleashed the static charge as he vanished. The lightning he called down rattled the windowpanes as he landed on his knees in the street outside Alexius’s patron’s house. He scrambled up and ran as far as he could before he had to stop to breathe, his chest heaving.

Alexius was a fool to believe that such groups held the secrets to cure what Felix suffered from. Their fight before, when Felix and Dorian both admitted that there was no chance – that Felix’s salvation would only come at the hands of the Maker when the disease finally killed him – still weighed heavily on Dorian’s mind. The words, so thick themselves in sin and hatred, cut across his memory like thunderclouds rolling south across the twisted steppes of the Anderfels.  Dorian was going to stop Alexius because this wasn’t what Felix wanted – Andraste take him he was going to make sure that at least someone’s father respected the wishes of his son.

The magic clung to him afterward, cresting and miserable. He raised his hands to the Cumberland night sky and stared up at the moon where it hung heavy above him. Was this his fate? Was he doomed to carry the burden of _pater delinquitur_ – the dereliction of fatherly duty – on all fronts of his life?

Dorian drank that night in the back parlour of a whorehouse in the Cumberland alienage, he let the young man who’d plied him with wine to tell him what was the matter hold him as he sobbed. Later that night, Dorian let another man – this one tall and broad enough to be a soldier – have him when he was too drunk to care about how it would _look._ It was easy enough to forget with strong arms pushing him down into a scratchy mattress, easier still to gather his things and vomit in a back alleyway afterward. Down at the docks waiting to book passage to Jader, a port town on the Northern Orlesian coast, Dorian was sick again, sicker than he’d ever been in his life. He could not stop the nausea, no matter how hard he tried.

He told himself it was the stench of the sea port, and later, when he was on the actual Waking Sea, he told himself it was seasickness. But it wasn’t. The memory of the man in the brothel’s hands on him sent his stomach queasy again and he realised – _oh sweet Maker –_ he realized what had happened.

Like the creeping damp chill of the sea breeze, dread filled him. He had to be _sure_ , because what else could this be. He’d never had trouble before – never felt physically ill to the point where his magic was off-kilter – around men. Now though, now…  He was surrounded by Orlesians, which was just… _no_ , but there were a few hulking Ferelden types about. Dorian flirted shamelessly, he was after all, beautiful and dedicated to the pursuit of science at the sake of his livelihood, after all. Soon, Dorian and one of the lads were perched at the very back of the boat, nipping out of the young man – _Charlie’s_ – flask. It wasn’t good whisky, but it was enough to warm against the Waking Sea’s chill.

“Say,” Charlie said, catching Dorian’s face and turning it to one side. Dorian had shaved yesterday, his beard was growing in, but the moustache, his pride and joy, was still neatly waxed from before he’d gone to go meet Alexius. “Why not grow a full beard instead of this silly thing? You’ve got a nice face for it and a bit of scruff, well…you’d be very handsome… er, I mean more than you already are.”

Dorian tucked the flask back into the pouch at Charlie’s belt and pressed his hand against the front of Charlie’s breeches. He semi-hard already, and his hips jerked forward at the contact. A good boy then, Dorian liked it when they wanted it as much as he did. “Would you like to find out?” He tightened his grip, just enough to make the man draw in a gasping breath.

The gusto by which Charlie accented was… enthusiastic to say the least. And Dorian, to his credit, did not comment on having his hair mussed at once he saw the size of the man. Oh, he thought, this is going to be _fun_.

And it was fun. Dorian came hard, spilling over the lower deck railing and thankful that it was late enough now that most were asleep and out of the cold.  Charlie’s hand was gentle, but firm, and he didn’t let up until he’d come as well, grunting and rutting into Dorian. Charlie laced up his breeches and kissed Dorian sweetly on the cheek. “You’re amazing,” his eyes were shining. “I’ve never. Not with a Tevinter. Hardly ever with men.”

“Take it from one of both, it’s quite an enjoyable pastime if you can get past the judgmental glares and crippling guilt at letting down your family.”

“People at home don’t really care. Got a pair of uncles who’re raising my dead auntie’s kids together. She died in the Blight.”

The nausea set in then. Dorian didn’t know what to say to Charlie’s comment, about men like him being _not hated_ , being able to be free and open and have _children_. He gripped the railing for a long moment, saying nothing, before he couldn’t stand it anymore. Leaning out over the sea, he vomited black and glowing blue, the magic in him twisting like a knot of revulsion.

“Maker, Dorian, are you alright?” Charlie’s hands were on him and this time the sickness hit him like a gut punch.  He sank to his knees, his whole body shaking. Charlie hovered, pressing a gentle hand to Dorian’s forehead, tender, caring. A good boy who would make someone very happy one day. Just not now, just not Dorian.

“Charlie, you were great fun, but I think… maybe I should be alone now.”

“Are you sure? Getting sick like that’s no good on the body. And I’ve never seen someone with blue vomit before.” Charlie stared out into the ship’s wake, as though daring the glowing vomit to shine like a beacon or some other foolish thing.

Dorian gripped the railing and hauled himself back to his feet, nodding. “I’m sure.”

“Well, this was fun.”

“Truly. A thousand apologies for being ill. The sea, truly, does not agree with me.”

It was only when Charlie was gone that Dorian let his knees collapse from under him once more. His father… the blood magic. In broken Tevene, Dorian pressed his hand to his chest and whispered the words to the only diagnostic spell he knew. His hands were shaking, watching as the runes flared pale blue before him before shifting to green. The spell hung heavy at his fingertips, and when Dorian pulled his hand away, the wisp form that represented the balance of his mana was black and screaming. The corruption inside of him was growing, tugging at the mana which sustained Dorian’s connection to the fade, chewing away at his very soul.

So this was to be his father’s legacy. All because he refused to live a lie.

Dorian, not for the first time in his life, sobbed into his pillow that night. The ship rocked with the gentle pull of the sea, and Dorian realized how truly miserable his life was about to become.

And then he was _truly_ in the south. Orlais was cold and damp and the mist fell like heavy rain. Dorian hated it immediately, and with news of their being a civil war brewing, he’s promptly decided to leave. He cut through the mountains on the ruins of the Imperial Highway to Ferelden. As he travelled over the low foothills of the Frostbacks toward Lake Calenhad and the ruins of where the Ferelden circle once stood, his resolve strengthened into icy steel. No matter his feelings towards Alexius, he could not be allowed to continue. He saw the way people looked at ‘Vints here, he didn’t want to have anyone connected to him furthering that image of corruption and excess.

He spent the last of his coin on a tent, a new mount and an awful wool cloak from a merchant he met in the narrow footpath that his map told him was named Gherlen’s Pass. It was a foolish expense, perhaps, and he had no talent for healing to earn back the coin. He supposed it didn’t matter much anymore, because his quarry was close at hand. Alexius would go to the circle to find the mages, and if they weren’t there, he’d travel until he found them.  Dorian would follow. And so he ventured into the wilds of this land he had only ever read about in books. Two weeks into his journey, finding the circle tower abandoned and the docks aflame, Dorian cut south and east along the lakeshore, following the pull of familiar magical energy. Alexius was always too flashy, and his magic left remnants everywhere. A week later and he found a small town – no more than a gathering of houses around a central square and a dusty-looking market, and a blessed tavern where he could sit anonymously and warm his bones for a few hours.

There was a boy at this tavern. Young, maybe just past sixteen and all elbows and knees and just growing in beard, who sat in the corner with a book propped up against his knees. He sipped the swill they called ale in this place and turned the pages quickly enough to mark him as learned. Dorian watched him at a distance, wrapped in a cloak bought upon landing to make himself blend into this drab brown countryside, all itchy wool against the coming winter’s chill.  He watched the boy read, his hair falling into his eyes and his fingers twitching, tracing out words, runes, carefully spelling the arcane with little sparks that glowed deep amber in the tavern’s low light. From the bar, another young man, this one a little older and a little wearier looking, collected a mug of ale and returned to the table. He straddled the bench across from his companion and squinted at the runes etched on the table, his knee bouncing nervously as he did so.

From across the tavern, Dorian twisted his wrist and opened his palm. The magic that flared there was an old spirit-based trick he’d learned in his circle years, designed to draw sound closer across the fade. The hour was growing late, and he was so utterly bored with this dreary place that he would sink so low as to eavesdrop on the conversation of others. Such a trick would never work at home, and it had been so _long_ since Dorian had had a chance to use such a spell. Everywhere at home was warded against such rudimentary forms of listening in. He tipped his wine glass forward and pointed, fingers splayed out as though he was lost in thought, and opened his mind to the fade.

“—into the Bannorn. We can’t get out of there without someone noticing Davin, this is where the war is now.” The younger man’s accent was such that Dorian had to force his mind to focus. Fereldans slurred their vowels together in was that were an affront to the laws of language. Dorian’s grasp on their tongue was impeccable, but their spoken dialects were a struggle at times. The boy closed his book and set his hand down flat in the middle of the rune circle he’d drawn. “Dav, I’m serious. No matter what we do, they’re going to know we left--” his voice dropped to barely above a whisper “—the _circle_ and didn’t join the rebellion.”

The older boy, Davin, shifted his weight and Dorian caught sight of the long sword at his belt. A mage and his guard perhaps? Or… “What they did when the circle fell was unconscionable, Avi. What they planned to do to everyone who rebelled… I-I didn’t side with them, Avi. I didn’t want to. This whole thing is a mess.”

“What if we went north? Or to Denerim? I have a friend from the Alienage there who could get us passage across the Waking Sea to Ostwick or somewhere _stable_.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere near Kirkwall – or the Marches in general. Maker, they say everyone’s mad on lyrium there and after what happened with the circle….”

Avi’s face grew troubled and he pushed his book aside to take the Davin’s hand. “I don’t want that to be you, Dav. Not after…” He sighed and looked away, over toward Dorian and his half-empty wineglass. Avi’s eyes narrowed, watching Dorian, who, by virtue of good manners and exceptional breeding, kept his face perfectly neutral. He pretended to be staring off somewhere in the middle distance above the bar, as though lost deep within his thoughts. Eventually Avi’s gaze turned back to his companion. “Do you…”

“ _Yes_.” Davin’s voice was rough. “Every minute of the day.” He reached out and pressed his hand to Avi’s cheek. “I stand by what I said. I can do this. I’m not on it long. The dreams – what they say happens – it hasn’t started… yet.” His voice grew stronger then. “I won’t let them find you though. Even without it. No one will find you. I’ll protect you.”

The pieces slotted neatly into place and Dorian let the listening spell fade. Two friends – maybe more – stuck on opposite sides of a war they wanted nothing to do with it. He drank the rest of his wine and got to his feet and smoothed his hair back into place where the hood of his cloak had mussed it up. He had half a mind for a pipe, the herbalist selling her wares outside had traded him a small package of dried leaves that smelled sweet and danced on his tongue when he’d sampled them earlier for a freshly cut collection of Crystal Grace blooms he’d stumbled upon quite by accident as dawn broke, drawn in by their quiet tinkling in the breeze. She’d promised him the blend would help with his stomach and the nausea, but could do little else for what ailed Dorian.

“Tha’ requires skill far beyond me hedgewitchin’, boy.” She shook her head. “Mixin’ magic and blood is never good – an’ tha’s what they’ve done to you.”

“My thanks, regardless.”

Now though, faced with these two boys, Dorian felt pathetic. He was an altus mage underneath this itchy awful cloak, a future magister. The last of his line, bartering for weed so he could forget his troubles – and his nausea – for a time. _Disgusting._ A proud Tevinter mage unafraid of the politics the heretical southern chantry and the White Divine pushed onto these poor people, traveling so far south his skin crawled with cold. He was odd – out of place – and fighting off a blood curse from his own blighted father.

And yet, the person that Dorian aspired to be, the person who was unafraid of what people might think and who wished for nothing more than a world where people like him could be free, wanted to help this boy.

 _He could go to Tevinter, he could sell himself into bondage for a time and learn, become a proper mage in his own right without the fear that this place forced upon him. He could have a future._ The thought came unbidden, but was just as easily dismissed.

 _If he loves this boy, he cannot. Not in Tevinter_. The bitterness of the thought chewed at him and Dorian ached for more wine. He had no coin to help these boys, and was set to sleep in the tent in his pack on the outskirts of town to save what little he had for the finer things he could not bear to live without. He swallowed, pulled his pipe from the pouch at his waist. The movement caught Avi’s attention again, and soon Davin followed his gaze. It was a moment of decision, a moment of rebellion. Turn away, walk away, let these fool boys perish on the West Road.

In three steps, Dorian was at their table, sliding into the seat at its head, his pipe lit and clenched between his teeth without so much as a care for the brazen display of magical prowess, not to mention control. He had always had flawless control. That was what made him dangerous, made him difficult to control.  “Tell me something,” he said in the perfectly neutral affect that was the educated Tevinter’s approach to the trade tongue. Compared to their slurred vowels and warmth, he sounded cold, unfriendly. Good. “Is it wise to be displaying such affection?”

Davin and Avi shared a long look. Davin’s hand fell to the table and then slipped below it, going for his sword no doubt. Dorian couldn’t have that. He moved his hand and the metal of the sword’s hilt burned red hot.  Davin drew his hand away, hissing at the burn. “Maker—”

“Ah-ah. You’re far too beautiful to be dying today, Davin, was it?” Dorian pulled his pipe from his lips and tapped it to resettle its contents. The boy nodded, glancing at his companion, whose eyes were wide as the saucers in Dorian’s mother’s favourite tea set. “Let me give you both some advice from an old hen. What you’re doing right now? Hiding, playing at some sort of storybook romance? Don’t.”

“How did you—” Davin started, but Avi grabbed for his burnt hand and he hissed in pain once more.

“Davin, he’s _Tevinter_ – a magister. Shut up.” The boy’s eyes went wide and he stared at Dorian.

“Did my accent give me away?”

“You speak with no feeling,” Avi answered, his gaze icy.

“Wise in these times of war.” Dorian sucked on his pipe. “Never let them know what you’re thinking.” He blew smoke from his nostrils. “Do heed my advice. Hiding yourself away in the backroom of some Ostwick tavern as your lover looks for work to feed you both? You’d be better off drowning in the Waking Sea or choosing sides. He cannot be your hero, like you cannot be his.”

“What do you know about it?”

Dorian chucked, slow and dangerous. “I’m from Tevinter, as you so rightly stated. Who do you think invented tragedy? Certainly not the bards in this foul place.” He blew out more smoke. “The world views your love as sin and your magic as abomination, boy. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you can never run far enough, never hide well enough. Magic is a tool, and you’re barely skilled enough to wield it.”

Avi looked down at the table, at the scuffed remains of the runes he drawn there. Dorian watched him, the heady combination of the pipe and the power of truth telling rushing to his head. He didn’t want to hurt the boy, but these were the realities of the life he’d chosen and the life he had no choice but to lead. “Why are you telling us this?”

“Because someone needs to.” Dorian pulled the book toward himself and flipped it open to read the title page. An old, but not necessarily out of date spell book. It would serve him well. “These are the realities you must face if you run headlong into some fantasy unprepared.” He tapped the book. “This will serve you well, as will young Davin’s sword. You must reign in your fear boy, lest the demons slip through the fade and take you. You’re still unskilled to even think of a harrowing.”

“I’m harrowed—”

“Ah, yes. That barbaric southern practice of forcing a child to fight off demons. That is not what I meant in the slightest.” Dorian exhaled more smoke. “You are a mage, dear boy, but an unskilled one. This war will take you quickly if you’re not careful – you and Ser Davin both.”

“You’re – you’re like us.” A beat of irritation pulsed between Dorian’s eyes and he felt a wave of nausea as he inhaled just a little too quickly, the truth and the weed hitting him all at once. Davin was staring at him openly. At the cheap wool cloak thrown over his expensive (if somewhat threadbare) Tevinter robes and the high quality elfroot derivative weed in his pipe. Davin was staring at him as though he were seeing straight through the bluster and bravado that came with being a Pavus and heir to one of the most powerful seats in the Magisterium. “You know.”

“I do.”

“Then why be so cruel?” Davin demanded. He grabbed for his tankard of ale and pulled it to himself. It sloshed all over his hands. “Why tell us that there’s no future?”

It was with a heavy sigh that Dorian looked at these two boys. So young, so very much in love. They were fools, fools for believing it was possible, even here, in a place where such things were not unheard of and were sometimes sung into legends. “Perhaps I’ve lived long enough to give up on happiness. Perhaps I’ve just seen too much of the world to believe it exists at all. Whatever the case. You and your beloved must be more careful. Eyes wander in these hinterlands. People _see_. I was able to see. You are an odd pair. You stand out.”

“And then you go an’ show yourself off.”

“Dav—”

“No, Avi. We don’t need to listen to him. Why listen to an old, bitter man?”

“Because I am trying to help you, you idiot boy.” Dorian got to his feet and tossed an amulet – a keepsake from an old lover long since spurned. “Go to Western Orlais, into the borderlands near Churneau or Ghislain. Those backwaters should allow you safer passage to Nevarra than to go through the Free Marches. Our kind aren’t disliked there as much as they are here, and there is a man in Trevis who owes me a favour.” If he was honest, he didn’t think the man would mind. The boys were young yet, and still at the age when they were eager to learn. “His name is Klaus von Musei and he runs… something of a trade school there with use for you both. I cannot guarantee that he will take you, or that he has any use for a half-trained mage and a Templar off his lyrium, but he would be able to point you in the right direction.” It was no kindness, the journey he’d sent them on, and it would not end for many months.

-

The sky tore itself asunder before Dorian found Alexius. A great glowing green void of horror that loomed over the entirety of the Ferelden countryside and Dorian could not look away from it. He moved toward it slowly, hiding his Tevinter clothing beneath the awful itchy cloak and wrapping his staff amid a bundle of sticks lashed to his horse’s saddle. He was like any number of the refugees from the war, giving the mages and Templars fighting here a wide berth. The chaos of the war here made him invisible, and Dorian was glad of it, following the muddy road and late autumn chill toward Redcliffe, the seat of the Arling he’d been wandering through for the better part of two months.

All anyone could speak of is the sky. Dorian grew weary of the speculation quickly, but concern with the rumours that the White Divine was dead because of it weighed heavily upon him. The south would surely descend into chaos if that were true, and the monstrous force that Alexius had aligned himself with would take advantage. He moved faster then, traveling longer into the night, foregoing sleeping when he could. Hollow at the prospect of the chaos erupting around him, Dorian listened to the refugees on the road. People were gathering, it was said, in a place high in the Frostbacks called Haven. If he couldn’t find Alexius, perhaps that would be Dorian’s next destination. The gash in the sky was unnerving, not to mention unsightly, and his talents as a properly trained enchanter would surely be of use in any effort to close it.

But Alexius made himself easy to find – in hushed, and undeniably tense, negotiations with the mages at Redcliffe Castle, which the fool queen of Ferelden had offered to them as a safe-haven against their former captors. Though it was Felix, dear, sweet Felix, all grown up into a strapping young man, who found Dorian. Or rather Dorian who stumbled upon him. He was outside the city walls, gathering elfroot for a lame healer for a handful of coins, when he stumbled upon the boy perched on a small rise, watching a fight below.

“The magic these southern Templars possess,” Dorian intoned in lieu of a proper greeting.  “Frightful stuff. Been running for days now.”

Felix turned then, and gave a startled cry, rising to his feet and throwing his arms around Dorian in a gleeful hug. “Maker, Dorian – I –”

“Never thought to see me again, am in awe of my dashing good looks,” Dorian laughed delightedly and swung the man around in his arms. He was grown now, grown and beautiful and still so sweet. The darkspawn corruption showed, but only slightly, at the corners of his eyes. “Yes, I know I’m beautiful Felix, even if I stink of dog and horse and mud. But _Maker_ , I’ve missed you so.”

Felix’s eyes were wan, but his smile was truly genuine when Dorian pulled him back to look at him. His hair was cropped shorter now, sorter than Dorian had ever seen it before. It made him look older, distinguished. Like he wasn’t dying. “You disappeared.”

“Had a row with your father.”

“Can’t say I fault you there.” Felix’s face grew troubled and his grip tightened on Dorian’s scratchy cloak, as though he was unwilling to let go of the embrace. “There were rumours… about your disappearing from Minrathous in the dead of night. Whispers of your father buying a blood mage slave in Neromenian who turned on him.”

The laughter that bubbled up in Dorian’s chest hurt with the bile of the lingering effects of the option – the  corruption in his stomach all his research said he would never be free of – not entirely. The situation was funny, if he allowed himself to think on it long and hard. “The boy was dead before he turned on my father.” He sighed. “But let us not speak of such things.”

“Dorian…”

“It is done.” Dorian said, hoping is tone brooked no argument. “What more is there to say? That man is not my father.” He pulled away from Felix’s embrace and bent to pick up the armful of elfroot stalks he’d gathered. He fixed his friend with a hard stare. “Your father, however… what is he up to Felix?”

When they walked back into Redcliffe together, time stopped…

 

 

 

… until it started again and Dorian found himself watching from the shadows as four people – a dwarf, an elf so bald his head gleamed in the early morning sunlight, and two humans, one taller than the other with a frightful scar on her cheek – walked into the Gull and Lantern all blistering with intent.  The magic trapping them within this city had faded, Dorian felt it immediately. Time magic had a funny way about it, and never failed to make him feel ill. Good, good, things were happening. Felix turned from where he sat at the bar and fixed Dorian with a hard look, his head dipping down once before he downed his drink. They’d discussed this. Felix was no more keen than Dorian that his father was a Venatori sympathizer, and as the binding spell Alexius put into place removed the agency from the Ferelden circle mages was an affront all magekind. Dorian couldn’t stand by it – and if these newcomers were able to break Alexius’s spell holding Redcliffe still, then they were the ones to go to for help. What Alexius was doing, the way the magic was woven together, it was so clumsy and so _unlike_ Alexius. His desperation showed, just as it had when he’d been when Dorian had washed his hands of the whole thing. He regretted those words now, seeing Felix sicker than ever before. Regretted shouting at Alexius to move on as Felix so clearly had. Regretted leaving and the drunken stupor of a year that followed.

“I’m going to die, you know,” Felix had said to him a few days-weeks-hours-minutes ago. “Die because of this blight.”

“You could go to the wardens.” Dorian said. “Maker take your father, go to them. Tell them that you’ve taken the taint. You’ve _survived_. That should get you into their little club.”

“I’m no warrior Dorian. No mage. I like _numbers_. I wanted to work on theoretical mathematics, not get dragged along into some blighted southern war.”

“Wardens need accountants too.” It was an old joke, one from when they were far younger. Dorian didn’t pretend to understand the numbers his friend so loved and Felix didn’t pretend to understand the theoretical spellwork that Dorian and Alexius spent hours holed up in the study fiddling with.

Felix clasped Dorian on the shoulder, and Dorian winced. The runes at his chest were raised, and the knot of scarring that ran up his arm was painful still. His stomach churned, and the lingering effects, the repulsion at another man’s touch, he supposed that was all in his head really. But he still wanted to vomit just at the thought of it. “Aye,” he said like he’d gone truly native. In another life, maybe he would have liked Ferelden. Maybe he would have ended up living here. He wasn’t the scary sort of Tevinter, after all, scarcely enough magic to not be called a soporati. Just enough talent to be a disappointment to his grandfather. “Aye that they do.” He looked out over the lake, so huge it could be an inland seal, and sighed deeply, “So what do we do?”

“We stop your father. Stop your father and save these poor southern sods from whatever fate they’ve set themselves up for. Maker knows the Magisterium isn’t going to give them citizenship or whatever foolish end your father’s promised.”

“Too southern?” Felix’s lips quirked.

“Too afraid,” Dorian answered. “Of themselves, of their magic, of the beasts who kept them locked away. They’d tremble in their boots if they knew the depths of what a proper Tevinter could do with a fraction of the mana they expend on their rudimentary spellwork. There’s no finesse here, no control. Just barely restrained raw power. Small wonder more of them don’t end up abominations.” Dorian sighed deeply. “I’ve watched these mages, Felix, watched how they grovel to your father at the idea of his protection. They’ve never had to fend for themselves, never had to fight their own battles locked away in those circles.”

“Are you saying they don’t know how to fight?”

“I’m saying Maker help them if he conscripts them.” Dorian ran a hand through his hair and pressed his fingers gingerly into his eyes.  He’d taken to not wearing charcoal while traveling, but now that he was stationary for a time, it was an indulgence he allowed himself. That and proper shaving. Oh, how he’d missed shaving. “I heard the former Grand Enchanter say that she went to Val Royeaux before your father trapped us in time – and that she spoke to the newly-formed Inquisition there.”

“Would they come here?”

“If they do, that is when we make our move, Felix.”

Only now, as Dorian waited for their rendezvous at the appointed place to tell the Inquisition of the danger, he felt something tear through the fabric of reality and explode around him.  Turning, his stomach dropped to find himself face to face with the lurching form of a rage demon, red and twisted with molten flame licking the sides of its body. He could hear his heart beating steadily in his ears as he pushed himself backward into the fade, levelling his staff and hurling mana at the beast.

The icy energy of the Winter’s Grasp spell collided with the rage demon as Dorian’s back thudded against the Chantry walls. The rage demon roared its displeasure. Dorian twisted his staff forward and started a barrage of low-mana storm attacks, concentrating on his breathing and his control. A demon he could handle – but it was the glowing green tear in the veil above them that set his teeth on edge. He had no way of closing that, no way of sealing its breach in into this world.

The chantry doors banged open and the Inquisition’s emissaries stood stunned for a moment as the tear in reality spurted vile green energy onto the ground around them.  He stepped around a pool of it and felt the fade tug at him, pulling, calling, singing, desperate for him to draw nearer. Dorian slammed his staff into the ground, drawing a lightning bolt down to hit the rage demon.  “Ah,” he said, with about as much affected nonchalance as he could muster, given the circumstances. “About time you got here. Now, can you help me close this?”

“What is this?” demanded the tall, thin woman who drew her sword and advanced on the rage demon. “Who are you?”

“Leave it, Cass,” the other woman said. She drew her sword as well and clapped it against her shield. “After we deal with the rift.”

The fight took no time, the two humans were surprisingly efficient at killing things with their pointy swords and the elf’s magic was… fascinating to say the least.  Dorian had seen elves work magic at home, naturally, half the slaves in the Imperium carried some modicum of magical talent, but his was so _different_. There were a million questions at Dorian’s lips by the time the rage demon was gone but then the shorter woman was doing something with her glowing hand and suddenly the tear in reality was _gone_ and oh, the questions Dorian had.

Behind him he heard a click and turned.  The dwarf levelled a - maker was that a _crossbow_? – at him and jerked his chin toward the shorter human. “What do you think, Herald?” He stepped more into the light and Dorian took him in, all barrel chested and surprisingly nice looking chest hair. “He’s Tevinter too.”

The woman pushed her hair from her eyes leaving a bloody smear across her face. “The man has exceptional observational skills, Varric. Telling us our lives are in danger after we walked into a town full of _Tevinter mages._ ” Dorian liked her instantly, even if the sickly green glow at her palm made his stomach turn.

“Enchanter Dorian Pavus,” he gave a half bow. “Most recently of Minrathous. You’ve already met my former mentor, I take it. Seeing as you got my note.”

“You know Alexius?” The taller woman – Cass – asked. Her accent was Nevvaran, now that Dorian heard her more clearly. They never could handle the Tevene vowel combinations.

“Knew. He sponsored my harrowing. Haven’t seen the man but for a brief encounter in Cumberland about six months ago when he started spouting the most ridiculous Tevinter supremacist rhetoric that I’ve heard in ages. And I’ve read the mid-Towers Age rhetoric following the schism.” Dorian heaved a mighty sigh. “The magic he’s using here – the magic he used to beat you to the punch – it’s theoretical. And extremely unstable.”

“I had wondered,” the elf intoned. “It pulls at the fade in ways I have not encountered before. A temporal imbalance rooted in what I do not know.”

“I can show you, if you’d like.” The elf nodded. With a side-long glance at the humans and the dwarf’s wicked crossbow. Dorian raised a hand and will the runes to glow purple around his fingers. He sank his fingers into the spell and twisted, accelerating the world around them for a few seconds. He felt, rather than heard the shorter woman’s gasp at the quickening. The elf just looked mildly interested. “It draws on the fade from two points, one now and one then. And pushes the excess – hastened time – through the veil and into the user. Or at least, theoretically that’s what it does. I left Alexius’s tutelage after he gave up on the project… which he evidentially went back to working on without me. I’d be wounded, if only for the paper credit when he finally submits it to a circle. Ah, pride.” Dorian leaned on his staff and regarded them all openly. “The magic is wildly unstable. Especially when used on such grand a scale. At the scale at which Alexius is using it at, it’s unravelling the world.”

The shorter woman, _the Herald,_ pulled a rag from the pouch at her waist and began to wipe her blade down. “You’ve just … babbled at me about theoretical magic and the Towers Age. How can I trust you?”

“I’ll vouch for him.” Dorian turned. Felix had let himself in through the back door. He looked especially wan in the half-light of the chantry. “Everything he’s said is true. After I got sick my father got involved with the Venatori, thinking they might be able to help him find a cure.”

“A cure? What’s wrong with you?” The Nevarran woman demanded.

“Blight sickness. Got attacked on the road north from Val Royeaux about five years ago now. Stragglers after the Wardens killed the archdemon.” Felix exhaled. “He worries. I can’t be gone too long. But Dorian is telling the truth – my father isn’t the man he once was. Whatever he’s doing here, he did it because the Venatori are interested in the big hole in the sky. Everything he’s done here – everything he’s done to the mages – all those promises? He’s done it to get to you, Herald.” With that, he pitched forward and Dorian could scarcely move fast enough to catch him. He pushed against Dorian’s hands. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not, let me help you Felix.”

“There’s no helping me, Dorian.”

The Herald’s company exchanged long looks and Dorian straightened. “I’m sure you will want a full briefing. Felix cannot leave, but I’ve been here for what feels like weeks now, I can provide such a service.”

-

Haven was a freezing shithole of a village perched high in the Frostbacks that made Dorian’s eyeteeth ache as he sat in front of a small campfire down by the practice grounds and shivered, black thoughts of Alexius plaguing his mind. That future, that terrifying place. He couldn’t allow it to come to pass. He’d sworn to the Herald and the rest of her Inquisition that he wanted to help put a stop to it. Not just for himself, penance for the sins of his mentor, but for all of Tevinter. “You’re but one man,” the Antivan woman who served as the Inquisition’s ambassador had said to him after his dramatic declaration. “You can’t redeem your country alone.”

“I can try, Lady Montilyet.” Dorian had responded. “The Venatori are an offense to the Imperium, to me personally as well. I’ll kill every last one of them if I must. They cannot be allowed to continue to sew chaos and bear the black stain of all that’s wrong with my homeland into being.” He was resolute in that belief too. They had to be stopped. What Alexius had tried – all in some stupid attempt to save poor Felix – now traipsing all the way back to Minrathous - to the Magesterium to tell them what happened.

It would take his mind off of his own troubles, for a time.

Now, at the outskirts of town in front of a fire built by the only other Tevinter in this forsaken town, Dorian realized just how unprepared for this he was. He was used to standing out at this point, and to see another one of his complexion, who cursed as he did, was like a breath of fresh air in this sea of Ferelden and Orlesian folk.

“Not often an altus ventures this far south.” He tilted his head to one side, leathers creaking as he poked at the fire with a stick. “Times of war are strange indeed.”

Dorian scowled at the boy. He had the soporati look about him. Hardened from the military life, but still soft about the cheeks. Youthful and beautiful. If Dorian wasn’t so overwhelmed he might have found it in himself to flirt. “You aren’t a mage,” He said at length. He could feel the utter _lack_ of magical talent on this boy at thirty paces. “Tell me, is your father a clerk?” It was a common position for ex-soldiers, retiring into the clerical bureaucracy which kept the Imperium running. Such questions were common when interacting between the classes in Tevinter. A polite way of asking after someone’s rank without directly insulting them. The boy didn’t have the look of a slave, not the harrowed look of an utter disappointment to his name.

The boy’s lips pitched down into a scowl, and Dorian realized his rudeness too late to do anything about it. “No.” he said shortly. “My father is dead.”

“And before?” Dorian fumbled for his pipe. This place turned his stomach and the sickness only seemed to grow worse. And there it was, the stiffening, the drawing of lips back against the boy’s teeth that told Dorian all he had to know. Dorian exhaled slowly and spoke in quiet Tevene, choosing his words carefully. “There is no shame in it.”

“There was no _point_ to it.” The boy hissed. His jaw was tight. His teeth grinding. “I wouldn’t expect an _altus_ to understand. Especially not the son of a magister.”

Dorian clicked his tongue and made an affronted noise, lighting his pipe and sucking in the elfroot. Ever since he’d arrived, he’s felt off balance, his stomach roiling with the mana he’d expended to first disrupt and then break Alexius’s spell. It made him nervous, because the blood curse should not be mutating in this way. It should be just what his father intended. Dread seeped into Dorian’s bones. The implications of his condition worsening….

He sighed, getting lost in his own head and being rude would get nowhere and he did not want to alienate the one countryman he had in this place. Not before he knew more about him. He coated himself with the veneer of respectability that folded over himself like worn beloved leathers when he was guarded. “My good serah, you wound me. If my name and title are what concerns you, rest assured that it, along with my relationships with the noble house from which it came severed long before I ever made my journey south into this blighted locale.” He exhaled smoke at the boy. “You have me at a disadvantage, you know. You know my name – and yet I do not know yours.”

“You’ve a reputation Lord Pavus.”

“Well earned, I assure you. But I must correct you. The Lord Pavus is my father, miserable though he is. A seat in the Magisterium is so fleeting, is it not?”

“The whispers say you cost your father his place in the Archon’s circle.”

“No, that was something else.” Dorian sucked on the pipe. “But you’ve yet to tell me your name.”

“Krem.” The boy held out his hand.

Dorian took it, grasped his forearm and held as was custom. “Krem? Hardly a proper Tevinter man’s name.”

“Cremisius Aclassi.” The boy scowled.

“There, that wasn’t so hard.” Dorian grinned at him. “Good strong name, too. What was your father’s trade?”

“He was a tailor.”

“Ah, that business with Magister Tsipras, then?” Dorian had been in his third circle then, but given the mixing of classes there, he heard of how devastating Tsipras’s plan had been to the merchant classes. Krem looked surprised that Dorian was aware of the plight at all, but his face smoothed quickly, as all good Tevinter faces do, into a mask of polite indifference and interest.  “I cannot beg the forgiveness of the altus class, we’re dreadful as a collective. But you have my sympathies.”  He bent and tapped his pipe against one of the rocks encircling the fire pit. “Now, tell me, how does a good Tevinter soldier end up in the care of a Quanari-led mercenary band? Bad form, if you ask me. What with the war.”

The conversation shifted, Krem speaking earnestly of his time with the Chargers and with the Iron Bull – the great hulking giant of a creature lurking over by the stables chatting to a man with a beard so unkempt Dorian itched to stun him and give him a proper shave. Dorian listened, grateful for the conversation in Tevene after so long without it. Felix had insisted in communicating in the Ferelden tongue, or in common, because did not want the mages at Redcliffe thinking they were up to anything untoward. Dorian didn’t blame him. The Iron Bull sounded like an upstanding fellow, for a Quanri, though war made for the strangest of bedfellows. The Chargers were well-paid, and they were happy to work.

He watched the Inquisition’s soldiers drill, their commander prowling among them, thoughtfully smoking the elfroot to keep the churning of his stomach at bay. It grew worse, it seemed, after he used great amounts of mana. Or when he was starting to feel the stirrings of something he might have called attraction deep in the pit of his stomach as some of the more strapping Ferelden lads stripped off their breastplates following the completion of their drills. Soon it wasn’t just their armour that was gone but sweat soaked gambesons as well. Dorian couldn’t bring himself to look away. Standing in just their steaming tunics, the men chatted as one of the (evidently) more senior officers spoke to Commander Rutherford. He gestured toward the fighting ring drawn haphazardly in the snow and Rutherford’s face grew contemplative for a moment before he nodded and shouted something Dorian couldn’t make out to the now idle soldiers.

Dorian realized that his acid stomach would not be quelled by the herbs. His body lurched and he turned, ears burning in shame, and lost his breakfast into the nearest available containment apparatus.

“Maker’s breath!” Krem muttered, tugging his waterskin from his belt and practically shoving into Dorian’s hand. “Warn a man next time.”

“Would that I could, dear Cremisius. Would that I could.” Dorian set the waterskin aside and stared down at the swirl of sick in… was this a soldier’s discarded helmet? The twist of black bile with the glowing blue of the corruption slowly eating away at him from the inside was familiar and unwelcome. He would never be free of this, it seemed.

A shadow fell over them, broad and long in the late afternoon’s cold sunshine. Dorian glanced up, helmet still clutched in his hands. Squinting, he took in the dark shape until his eyes adjusted. Krem was quicker on his feet, raising a hand in greeting and scrambling to his feet to take the man’s arm. “Was there something you needed, Commander?”

“Yes, my helmet.”

Dorian’s interactions with the head of the Inquisition’s military arm up to this point had been brief, if tense. The man had barely a word for Dorian once the Inquisitor brought him back to Haven with the mages after Redcliffe, so intense was his ire. Lady Montilyet had been kind enough to explain why this was the case to Dorian privately. The man was once one of the beastly jailors the heretical southern chantry used to keep mages in check. To see the Inquisitor, some third daughter of an irrelevant Ostwick family that Dorian himself was distantly related to, side with the mages – let alone recruit them into the Inquisition – was a lot for him to swallow. Dorian had kept his distance ever since. He did not want to borrow trouble. His position in Haven was tenuous enough as it was.

He looked down at the helmet in his hands, full of sick and bile he’d expelled from his gut. “Ah, your helmet.” Dorian got to his feet, twisting his fingers into a simple freezing spell and praying that the sick froze quickly.  He felt eyes on him, and the Tevinter mask fell into place as the frozen mess of sick fell out in his hand.  He would not call it lyrium, but it in it glowed the same blue, encased in ice crystals. Dorian pitched it into the cluster of trees beside them and held out the helmet with a flourish. “One Ferelden tin-can.” He touched his fist to his chest, “Commander.”

The indignation that twisted across Rutherford’s face was enough to make Dorian wince. “Were you just… sick in my training helmet?”

“A Tevinter gentleman of breeding never discusses the nature of his humours.” Dorian answered smartly. Krem, he noticed, had made himself suddenly very scarce. Bastard.

The man in front of him stared down at the helmet in his hands as though it might bite him. His nose wrinkled suddenly and he nearly physically recoiled before catching himself. It was so fast, Dorian wasn’t sure he’d seen it, seen the way the man’s nostrils flared and his knuckles grew white. “Why were you taking lyrium? You have not been called to the field.”

“I wasn’t.” Dorian answered, and the mask faltered. His interest was peaked – he’d never heard of someone being able to _smell_ lyrium before, and for all he knew of what lurked within his gut, it wasn’t lyrium at all inside of him; but something else. He’d heard tell of the southern circles, of how the Templars there maintained order. He’d though the abilities just rumours until he’d seen them in action as he travelled through Ferelden. Now, face to face with one, the ability to sniff out magic was alarming.

“I can hear it on you. I can smell it in here.” Rutherford gestured with his helmet. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I won’t stand idly by while you charm your way into the Inquisitor’s heart. She may be soft for a pretty face, but I assure you, I am not.”

Dorian let his fingers splay out across his chest. Deflecting, deflecting, but also Maker take him if the man wasn’t a prime example of his kind. He fluttered his eyelashes, just enough to make it seem playful, so that hard edge of his voice didn’t creep too far in. Dorian, after all, was excellent at the game. “You think I’m _pretty,_ Commander Rutherford?”

If the comment had any impact, the good commander was able to dismiss it without even a twitch of his face. He stepped forward, boots heavy and crunching under the snow between himself and Dorian. His face was dark and dangerous, cloaked in the shadow of his armour and the sun at his back. “You reek of lyrium and its corruption, Enchanter Pavus, it clings to you like it does the Templars we have here.” His hand drifted toward Dorian’s gut. “And it sits here. So I ask again, why are you taking it?” 

His tone demanded an answer, curling with authority. Rutherford was a man used to getting his way, used to being in charge. It made Dorian bristle, want to push away, even if what Rutherford was saying was intriguing to his academic mind. Rutherford knew he was sick – knew something wasn’t quite right with Dorian’s gut and the way that he still grew ill despite the blood magic his father had used not taking. He sensed the mana imbalance it caused, smelled it somehow (and wasn’t _that_ just a fascinating little talent the good commander had). But who was this man to demand Dorian explain himself? There was nothing _to_ explain. Dorian was sick, he’d _been_ sick for two years now. This wasn’t new, and it certainly was not the good commander’s business if it manifested in unfortunate ways.

Still, there was no way around what Rutherford had seen, he would have to explain it somehow. Dorian folded his arms over his chest, meeting Rutherford’s demanding gaze with a defiant one of his own. “I hardly see how my illness matters to the Inquisition, but if the problems of my mana imbalance are truly that pressing, I suppose I must elucidate.” Dorian studied Rutherford’s face, watching his jaw work, debating if he should continue speaking. There was a beat, and then another, before Dorian spoke again. “Nasty bunch, Tevinter Magisters. Especially when you’ve overstepped. The effects can be… lingering.” He wasn’t going to say it was blood magic that did this, they’d string him up over the nearest tree branch and burn his body afterward for even being associated with such practices. No, he wouldn’t admit that to one of these southern barbarians. Especially not one with the reputation that Rutherford had.

Rutherford was silent for a long time, his expression carefully neutral. When he spoke, he sounded like he was reciting from a textbook. “Mana imbalance is dangerous. It leads mages to desperation, dependency on lyrium, and other such acts which could lead to their becoming abominations.” His hand fell to the hilt of his sword as if out of habit.

“You aren’t going to try and use that big sword on me, are you Commander?” Dorian asked, his tone icy. “Usually I ask for wine – maybe dinner and a quiet walk through a forest – before being impaled.” The innuendo was habit, the threat was in the drawing of his mana, depleted and shaky though it was after being ill, into his fingertips such that the crackle of energy was evident. The man would not so much as touch a hair on his head.

The man moved so quickly Dorian had barely drawn in a breath to keep his temper in check before he was breathing the same air as Rutherford. He stepped into Dorian’s space without so much as a hesitation, his presence heavy and the air singing with something that Dorian could best describe as _void_. There was nothing in the space, not ever-present hum of the fade, no sense of the natural magic that flowed through every living thing. There was nothing. Just Dorian’s breath fogging the space between them and the creeping cold.

Rutherford stood there, breathing in the same air as Dorian for a long moment. He seemed pained, his jaw a hard line and the hand on his sword gripping so tightly that the leather that wrapped the hilt creaked against the man’s glove. There was a quiet _thunk_ as the helmet hit the snow and a warm pressure on Dorian’s upper arm that went from pleasant to agony in the space of time it took for Rutherford to lean closer to whisper in Dorian’s ear. “Never attempt to use magic on me again.” His voice was a low, dangerous threat.

The magic crackling in Dorian’s palm vanished almost instantly, like fire doused with a pail of water. Dorian felt numb, for his connection with the fade in that moment vanished into nothing but a cold void where there was once warmth and comfort. Dorian hissed in response, pulling away from Rutherford. It felt numb. He _was_ numb, colder than he’d ever been in his life. Whatever Rutherford had done, it wasn’t going away with the break in contact.

“The Inquisition has healers. Go see one.” And with that, Rutherford scooped his helmet from the snow and walked back toward the ring and his soldiers.

Dorian _hated_ him.

-

He wasn’t _hiding._ No son of the house of Pavus was a coward, though Dorian supposed that he was a dead to his family as they were to him. So maybe it was just his superior breeding that kept him from admitting to himself that he was shaken by the afternoon’s encounter. He’d retreated up the hill into Haven proper, and had ventured as far as the tavern before the twisting in his gut made him retch all over someone’s chicken coup. His heart was pounding in his chest as he straightened, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand and shivering. There was no blue in his bile this time, just black sick.

Odd.

The thought lingered at the forefront of his mind as he passed over coin for a bottle of whatever vinegar passed as wine in this hellish town and sat down in the far corner of the tavern to drink until he forgot what it felt like to have another man so close to him again. He was halfway through the bottle, not even close to drunk, before his mind drifted back to the puddle of sick outside, to how Rutherford had smelled the lyrium on him, even where there was none inside him; how Dorian had admitted that his mana was imbalanced. He shouldn’t have said anything. It was his burden to bear, and it was Dorian’s intention to self-medicate with herbs and alcohol until whatever corruption of his humours ran its course. These things took time, especially when it was recovery from blood magic.

His mind turned darkly to his father, to the dead slave and the one thing, the _only_ thing, that Dorian and his father had ever truly agreed upon. Blood magic was the sign of a weak man, a man without resources to fix his problems without resorting to means which were disgustingly desperate. The house of Pavus did not do such things.

Except when it came to their continued success of their line, it seemed.

Dorian poured more wine, his mood darkening.

A chair scraped across from him, and a large, very unique crossbow fell into view. The Inquisitor’s dwarf friend, Varric Tethras, sat down across from him looking the picture of friendly concern. “Heard you had a run in with the good commander.” Ah, for an opening volley, it was a fine one. The tone almost made it seem as though Varric wasn’t following up on a rumour, though they both clearly knew that was why the dwarf was there.

“I do not wish to speak of it, Master Tethras, if it’s all the same to you.”

Varric shrugged, drumming his fingers on the table and looking thoughtful. “The man’s a nasty piece of work, I’ll give you that. Been that way for years.”

“Tell me something, is it a common southern habit to find a man in his cups and speak to him when he _clearly_ does not wish to be spoken to?” Dorian flicked his fingers into the space between the bottle and his cup and glared at Varric, daring him to talk his way out of this one.

The dwarf, to his credit, put his hands up in an effort to seem innocent. It was then that his face faltered, and the affected concern faded into something more genuine. “Ease up Sparkler, just wanted to see how you were. Krem said he got up in your face.”

“Another terrible southern habit.”

“What?” Varric tilted his head to one side, a smirk playing at his lips. “Tattling to daddy? I do believe the man is of your nation. Hardly southern behaviour if you ask me.”

“There are so many things in that sentence that I do not wish to touch that I have no idea how to respond to you other than to attempt to distract myself by falling into this wineglass.”

“Your hangover.”

“What do you _want_ , Varric?” Dorian demanded. “Yes, I had a small tiff with Rutherford. No, I do not appreciate what he did to me. Yes, he is very scary with that stupid dead animal about his shoulders and his big sword and blighted Templar magic. No, I do not wish to comment further on the circumstances that lead to said altercation.”

“He used… Andraste’s tits of course he fuckin’ did.” Varric sighed and motioned to the barkeep.  After a mug of ale had been delivered he fixed Dorian with a hard stare. “Did you do as he asked?”

“What?”

“See a healer. Did you go?”

Dorian looked away, toward the blonde elf across the tavern, sitting with the Herald and laughing about something or other. “What ails me cannot be cured, Master Tethras. It is in my blood now.”

“No need to go all tragic hero on me.” Varric took a long pull from his ale and wiped the foam away with his thumb. “Look around you,” he gestured to the tavern as a whole. “Everyone here is fucking terrified. We’re surrounded by the very mages who, just a week ago, were conscripted by your homeland to, from what I gather at least, become a military force. A military force already embedded deep in enemy territory.”

“Tevinter wouldn’t have them,” Dorian answered. “Southern mages are too scared of their magic. Timid in their execution. They’ve been brought up in cages, fearing their gifts, alienated because of them. At least at home, a mage in the family is a chance to rise in status, not become a pariah.” He was bitter about it. He wished he could have had _peers_ in this merry band of lunatics trying to save the world from the blighted hole in the sky. Madame de Fer’s prowess would have earned her the same title at home, and Solas, well, his use of the fade is almost enough to make up for his _abysmal_ personality. But the common mages? Dorian wanted nothing to do with them.

“For new forces, they aren’t ideal. Probably why Curly’s so testy.”

“Curly?” Dorian blinked at Varric, who rolled his eyes.

“Cullen.” Varric supplied. At Dorian’s still somewhat confused look he added, “Commander Rutherford. Keep forgetting that you’re _new._ ”

“You mean to tell me these Fereldens have more than one name? How novel.” Dorian sipped his wine with a raised eyebrow.

Varric gave a guffawing laugh. He shook his head, as if to clear the humour from it. “In all seriousness, though, our new recruits? They’re terrified of him. All the mages here are. He’s… been around.”

“He was in charge at Kirkwall,” Dorian said. “I’d heard.” It was another titbit Lady Montilyet had thought it vital that he know. It was probably some sort of warning to behave and not be flashy with his magic. Not that Dorian ever listened to such warnings, mind.

“Fat lot of good it did him. And that isn’t quite right. Cullen wasn’t in charge, he was second in command. Still was a nasty piece of work, though. But he wasn’t the driving force behind the worst of it.”

“Just a good soldier following orders then, how incredibly banal. Tell me, Master Tethras, how many mages died when Kirkwall’s circle dissolved? How many did _that man_ personally see made tranquil?”

“Enough to find a mage from Tevinter who isn’t afraid of him threatening indeed.” Varric looked down into the bottom of his mug. “Be careful around him, Dorian.” The familiarity of his name was alien to Dorian. He was unused to having near-strangers use it so casually. Names in the Tevinter Altus community were second place to titles, after all. It was strangely refreshing to be just _Dorian_ to someone. “He was… is… one of the best Templar soldiers there’s been in a long time. He’s ruthless and used to people doing what he says.”

Dorian thought for a moment, the wine slowing the process and making the logical process his mind usually so prided itself upon sluggish. “He’ll ask if I’ve been to the healers.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.”

“ _Kaffas_.”

“Yeah, shit indeed.”

-

The healer was, in a word, unhelpful. It was by chance that the elven mage, Solas, entered her tent just as Dorian was pulling his tunic back over his head after her tutting examination and confessed lack of knowledge of ‘whatever they do in Tevinter to leave such ghastly scars.’

“Hold, Enchanter Pavus, if you wouldn’t mind.” He raised a hand and pale white light blossomed through the room. The healer scowled at him and left, muttering something about knife ears an how they should learn to respect the spaces upon which they intruded. Dorian was not sorry to see her go, to say the least.

Still, he did not wish to be _more_ scrutinized than he already was in this freezing village. Solas, though Dorian had only interacted with him a handful of times, had a way to looking straight through Dorian was decidedly unsettling. He got the sense that there was more to the elf’s continued presence in Haven than the wish they all had to see the breach closed. He was a scholar, after all, and Dorian knew how to recognise one of his own.

Perhaps, had he not felt so absolutely unravelled by the events of the day, he would have been willing to speak to Solas. Perhaps, had his stomach been more settled he could even engage the man in conversation. His dreams of the fade were fascinating things, though his willingness to speak to spirits – and to be so _open_ about it – made Dorian nervous. Mages were not meant to converse with spirits. They were not _meant_ to indulge the whims of the very creatures mages spent their entire dreaming moment trying to ignore. Dorian wanted to know how he did it, and more importantly, _why_ he did it.

But not right now. Right now he wanted his pipe and his bunk.

“I would mind.” He answered shortly. “I don’t get naked for just anyone.”

“Is this where you, too, comment on my elven heritage?” He was so odd, even for an elf, that Dorian just stared at him for a moment before his manners kicked in and opened his mouth to speak. The elf was too quick, stepping forward and grabbing the base of Dorian’s tunic. His lips drew into a frown as he pushed it back up over his chest. He took in the raised scars of the marks, his fist pressed against Dorian’s shoulder, holding the tunic up.

Dorian drew as long breath, the press of the nausea suddenly so strong despite his stomach being long-empty that it was all he could do to get his breathing under control. “Whatever you’re doing, do it quickly please, I need too…” He couldn’t get the words out before the pile defeated him once more, and he bent double, messing into a slop bucket in the corner and dry heaving until there was nothing left.

“Does this happen often?” Solas was by his side, looking absolutely unbothered by the mess Dorian had made. “Or is it me?”

“You have nothing to do with it,” Dorian answered shortly. He wiped his mouth and took a ladle full of water from where it sat in another bucket by the healer’s workbench. He did not want to confess this to anyone. Certainly not this elf who was all but a stranger but who walked in the fade so effortlessly. He did not wish to be humiliated for his predilections, or for his failings.

However, when he looked back over at Solas, his hands were clasped behind his back and his chin tilted, just to one side. There was no arguing with him, it seemed. Dorian exhaled, grateful to still be holding the ladle as it was something to do. His tone was resigned when he continued, “When I draw in large quantities of mana.” He looked at Solas sideways for a moment. “And—” the words choked themselves within Dorian’s throat. He could not admit it.

_And when I am touched by men._

The elf said nothing for a long moment, staring at Dorian as though he was not really there. “There is corruption in you.”

“I know.”

“Who put it there?”

Dorian looked down at his hands and felt the pride swell up in him. He couldn’t speak of it, couldn’t tell the truth of it.

“The magic is steeped in blood.” Solas tried again, his voice not unkind, but curious. He, like Dorian, was a deep thinker. Most mages of their skill were. “That’s why the corruption has rooted so deeply. The runes suggest binding, to a will or a person I do not know, but they are clumsily written and the spell matrix imperfect. That is why they did not take, and, I can only gather, you are here.”

“There was a potion,” Dorian said suddenly, wanting to stop him before he went too far down that path. “I don’t remember what it tasted of, but the binding spell put on me wore off when the man who cast it died. The ritual had yet to finish. I forced the potion from me and it’s been coming up ever since.”

“Ever since?”

“It… happened… two years ago.” Dorian bent and picked up his leather coat from where it lay discarded on the ground. He shrugged it over his shoulders. “When I was still in Tevinter.”

Solas nodded his head once. If he thought there was more to Dorian’s story, or if he was truly concerned for Dorian, he did show it. “Would you be amenable to my running some tests? This illness will not serve us well. Especially if you are not able to function at your full capacity. Getting you cured, or at least stable, should be a priority if it is truly your wish to rid southern Thedas of your countrymen.”

Dorian, despite his better judgment, nodded and bid Solas a good evening. He wanted to sleep, to retreat to the bunk they’d offered him above the tavern, and to be alone and silent without anyone poking or prodding him for a time. He lit his pipe, standing in the twilight, and sucked on it tentatively, the elfroot quelling his system as he wrapped his cloak more tightly around him. Everything felt still – eerily still. Haven was a dead place, where everything stank sadness and mud and cold. Refugees were arriving daily, he was told, as were pilgrims. Why anyone would _want_ to come to such a morose place was beyond him. It was so close to the tear in the sky, so close to the mess of everything that was.

A woman in a deep purple cloak moved upwards though the town. Dorian watched her pause and speak to Solas at the crest of the hill before turning toward where he leaned against the tavern’s warm walls. Inside, the Herald and the elven girl, Sera, were drinking with Varric. Their laughter made him long to join in. And he supposed he could, provided his stomach would settle.

“Dorian,” The woman in purple intoned, lowering her hood. “Could I speak to you for a moment?”

Maker, could he ever be free of these southerners, even for five minutes?

Still, politeness forced him to smile, to nod to the Inquisition’s spymaster. It was easier than telling her no, easier still than confessing she was slightly terrifying. Instead he reached into his belt pouch for more elfroot. He pulled out a packet of papers and raised an eyebrow at her. She shook her head.

“Solas tells me you’ve taken ill.” Her voice was sweet, the concern even genuine.

_That egg-headed little rat._

“Solas should keep private matters to himself.” Dorian put his pipe into his mouth and rubbed his fingers together, coaxing flame up through the elfroot leaves. He sucked in smoke and wished for something in his stomach. The heady hit of the smoke was enough to make him cough. Maker, he needed to eat something. “It will not affect my work, nor does it impact my decision to stay and help with this fight. It is a … chronic condition, if you will.”

“I had hoped…” She started. “He spoke very highly of you and your magical ability upon meeting you. Your illness… troubles him.”

“That makes two of us then. We could start a fraternity with those numbers.”

“I know that humour is a way to deflecting fear and doubt, but you should know that people here care about you and do not wish to see you incapacitated. Solas spoke to me because he requires time and resources to examine your condition from the Inquisition. Such things are easy enough to provide, but you will have to avoid traveling with the Inquisitor until we have this situation sorted. As much as I know you will dislike me for it, I agree with Commander Rutherford’s assessment of the situation.”

“You’re… grounding me, Sister Nightingale?”

“And Solas too. Madame de Fer can accompany the Herald to the Fallow Mire.”

Well, _that_ , at least was a boon to this hellish day. Dorian could not think of worse fate, and he was the one vomiting whenever he drew on his mana or was touched by a man. Madame de Fer would be beside herself, slogging through a bog. He couldn’t want to hear about it.

Still, he resented being told to stay put. “Grounding me like I’ve snuck out of bed after dinner.” He sounded like a scolded child, and he didn’t care. He didn’t want to go to the fallow mire either, but it was the principle of the thing.

“Whatever you may think of our commander and his past behaviour toward mages, he is right to be concerned. A mana imbalance in one of the Inquisition’s mages carries great risk.”

Dorian’s lips pressed into a thin line and he said nothing. 

“While I do not share Cullen’s sentiment regarding how to handle such a situation, his assessment is sound. Keeping you on light duties until your mana stabilizes is wise.” She continued as though unbothered by Dorian’s deepening scowl.

“My dear Sister Nightingale, I must confess a certain aversion to having my autonomy stripped from me by small-minded men who like to play gods with other people’s lives.” He forced a steely smile. “You’ll understand if I am disinclined to comply with Ser Rutherford’s request.”

She smiled just as icily at him. Dorian was impressed at her manners. _Orlesians_. “I’d hate to think what would happen if the good commander was forced to come and retrieve you from wherever you retreated to sulk, Lord Pavus. He was quite the Templar, after all. One of the best in all of Thedas.”

Overhead, snow had started to fall. Dorian looked up at the grey-black sky, illuminated in a sickly green by the breach. It was eerie, and almost beautiful. It made her look beautiful, her red hair glowing like fire in the torchlight pouring out from the tavern. It made her look like just some innocent chantry sister. Looks though, could be deceiving.

“People keep telling me that,” Dorian answered, matching her frosty tone. “I would have thought one as well-informed as yourself to understand that I am not afraid of him.”

She smiled that irritating, closed-off smile at him that reminded Dorian she was ruthless and unafraid to spill blood to achieve her goals. Everyone in this blighted town was a killer, but with her, Dorian actually felt the threat that hung in the air at her silence. “Of course, Dorian.” She touched his arm gently, in the same place Rutherford had touched him earlier and stripped his abilities entirely. It was deliberate, and her eyes narrowed as he moved to take his leave. “Be careful with him. He is… trying to leave that behind, but old habits, I fear, die hard.”

“I don’t go borrowing trouble I don’t need.”

She laughed then, genuine and pure. It made her look years younger, closer to his own age, which the whispers said she was. “Why Enchanter Pavus, if that were true, would you be here at all?”

He gave a mock bow and retreated to the warmth of the tavern. “ _Touché_. Sister. _Touché._ ”


End file.
